› added 11 years ago

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TIL Benjamin Franklin gave up vegetarianism because when he sliced open a fish, he saw smaller fish inside, reasoning that if animals eat other animals, humans should be able to eat other animals.

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R75P6 TIL of Adrian Carton de Wiart a British Officer who served in 3 wars; was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip and ear; survived 2 plane crashes; tunneled out of a POW camp; tore off his own fingers when a doctor refused to amputate them. He wrote in WW1 "Frankly I had enjoyed the war."
RabQ TIL that in Feb 1942, a ship capsized off the coast of newfoundland. One of the 46 survivors was being cared for by local women who were trying to wash what they thought was oil off his skin. The women had never seen a black man before and we’re actually trying to wash the color off his skin.
DxaY TIL that the koala population of Australia is at serious risk of extinction, in part due to over half the population being infected with chlamydia
6EkKJ TIL that Napoleon was once interested in considering a submarine as a weapon in his military arsenal to combat ships. When it came time to look at the Nautilus, designed by American inventor Robert Fulton, Napoleon decided that Fulton was a swindler and a charlatan after learning the vessel leaked.
M7VeA TIL it's unknown for sure what William Shakespeare's life was like between the ages of 21-28 (1585-1592), from before he was a playwright in London. Speculation has ranged from him becoming a country schoolmaster, to becoming a soldier, to using London as an escape from punishment for poaching deer.